by toprob » Sun Oct 08, 2006 10:42 am
There are two triggers which much be set to animate the bridges. The first is proximity -- it you are not close to a bridge, it won't animate. This stops all the bridges from moving when you trigger one. The other trigger is the parking brake.
Now the problem stems from the way in which proximity is determined. There's a rectangular area around each gate. Unfortunately it isn't aligned with the gate, it is always North/South alignment independent of the alignment of the gate.
This is a bloody nuisance.
The need was to build a proximity box which a) worked at the gate you're at, and B) didn't trigger the nearby gates. This is not perfect, as the proximity box doesn't rotate when I place a new gate.
I used the PMDG 737 to check the gates, but it does depend on where the actual programmed 'centre' of the aircraft is. Some work better than others, it's the same with crash detection, sometimes you can squeeze a wing past a building, with another aircraft you'll get a crash metres away.
The animated bridges were built within the limitations of FS9. FSX has more flexibility, and you can assign a keystroke (or at least there is one already defined) to call the bridge. That's why most FS9 airports don't have animated bridges, and why most FSX airports will.
One last thing -- of course all this only works if the Actigate module is working -- check that it is installed -- it'll show up in the Modules menu -- and activated.
Actigate uses some fightsim variables which are normally used by addon scenery, and the likelihood is that you won't have a conflicting scenery which uses them here. However some aircraft designers use these as well, and this can cause a conflict. This is recognised as a limitation of actigate, but generally it should work as indicated.
